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booktag: c-suite book club

Joseph Sherren

Leadership is about creating a culture which will engage all employees in executing the Vision and Mission of the company. This book outlines the five principles required to be a successful manager in today’s multi generational and geographically diverse world. iLead provides a comprehensive overview of sensible and actionable analyses that managers can apply to create successful and productive teams. This is a book about creating a workplace where people are doing what they love to do, and are doing it in an environment that supports that encourages the development of their strengths.

Josh Linkner

Companies, communities, and individuals fall for many reasons, but one of the most common–and easily avoidable–is the failure to reinvent. When people and organizations rest on prior successes rather than driving purposeful transformation, they discover too late that they have lost their market position altogether to competitors and external forces. The most successful companies, brands, and individuals make reinvention a regular part of their business strategies. Transformation demands an ongoing process of discovery and imagination, and The Road to Reinvention lays out a systematic approach for continually challenging and reinventing yourself and your business.

Venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Josh Linkner identifies six elements in any business that are ripe for reinvention and shares examples, methods, and step-by-step techniques for creating deliberate, productive disruption. Throughout The Road to Reinvention , Linkner also explores the history–the great rise, unprecedented fall, and now rebirth–of his beloved hometown, Detroit. First rising to greatness as the result of breathtaking innovation, Detroit had generations of booming growth before succumbing to apathy, atrophy, and finally bankruptcy. Now, the city is rising from the ashes and driving sustainable success through an intense focus on reinvention. Linkner brings an insider’s view of this incredible story of grit, determination, and creativity, sharing his perspective on Detroit’s successes and setbacks as a profound example of large-scale organizational and personal transformation.

Change is inevitable. You need to decide: Will you drive that change, or be driven away by it? Will you disrupt or be disrupted? By choosing to deliberately reimagine your own status quo, you can secure a strong future for both your company and your career.

Karen Friedman

In today’s high-tech world, there are more ways than ever before to communicate: email, text messaging, voicemails, blogs, tweets, video conference calls, and remote meetings. But one thing is still exactly the same as in the old days: there are effective and ineffective ways to express yourself. All business professionals need to know how to communicate clearly, concisely, and passionately if they want their intended message to impact others.

Shut Up and Say Something shows readers how to convincingly communicate their expertise in any business situation. This book demonstrates how to condense complicated concepts, minimize communication mistakes, avoid misinterpretation, convey vision, and quickly influence decision makers. Strategies for expressing yourself succinctly and clearly, dodging “loaded” questions, thinking fast on your feet, humanizing inscrutable information, and using humor to engage an audience are examples of the topics covered. The importance of prioritizing outcomes is emphasized throughout the book.

Michelle Tillis Lederman

Michelle Tillis Lederman shows how networking can be as easy, enjoyable, and fulfilling as having a conversation with friends—and still be highly beneficial to career goals.

“When networking feels like something you have to do rather than want to do, it’s hard to motivate yourself to do it at all, let alone do it well,” acknowledges Lederman. In her book, THE 11 LAWS OF LIKABILITY: Relationship Networking…Because People Do Business with People They Like she will show you just how to achieve those relationships in business that last.

Forget the conventional emphasis on business transactions, work-related topics, targeted objectives, and self-serving thoughts. Lederman encourages networkers to radically shift their thinking and place a priority on something everyone can relate to, something at the heart of honest, engaging conversations and meaningful connections: liking and being liked.

This book, featuring activities, self-assessment quizzes, and real-life anecdotes from professional and social settings, shows readers how to identify what’s likable in themselves and create honest, authentic interactions that become “wins” for all parties involved.

Readers will discover how to:

  • – Start conversations and keep them going with ease
  • – Convert acquaintances into friends
  • – Uncover people’s preferences and tweak their own personal style to enable engaging, reciprocal interactions
  • – Create follow-up and stay in others’ minds long after the initial meeting

The worst thing we can do when trying to establish a personal bond with someone is to come across as manipulative or self-serving. Authentic connections go much deeper—and feel much easier—than trying to hit self-imposed business card collection quotas. This book presents a new paradigm that shows how even the most networking-averse can network…and like it.

Phil Weinzimer

Based on interviews with more than 150 CIOs, IT/business executives, and academic thought leaders, The Strategic CIO: Changing the Dynamics of the Business Enterprise provides insight, success stories, and a step-by-step methodology to transform your IT organization into a strategic asset that drives customer value, increases revenues, and enhances shareholder wealth.

The book details how strategic CIOs from FedEx, Procter & Gamble, McKesson, and other leading companies transformed their organizations. It illustrates the methods these CIOS used to become strategic partners that collaborate effectively within their organizations to leverage information and technology for a competitive advantage.

The text will help you assess the key competencies and skills required by IT personnel to partner with your business teams to create new and enhanced products and services that create customer value, increase margin, and enhance shareholder wealth.

The book includes powerful methodologies, time-saving templates, proven best practices, and helpful assessments. It also details a four-phase methodology, along with the associated activities and tools, to help your IT organization successfully transform into a strategic IT organization.

Gain insight into the four domain competencies and twelve associated skills required to build effective strategic IT organizations. Build your roadmap to success using the transformation methodology described in the text and you will be on your way to making your organization a strategic IT organization.

Ted Rubin

In today’s digital world it’s all too easy for us as brands and individuals to let our relationship-building muscles atrophy. We get caught up in a multitasking whirlwind of emails, social updates and text messages where it’s easy to let a connection or a conversation fall through the cracks. We’re super-connected, yet somehow disconnected at the same time. This puts us at risk of losing the very relationships that help us prosper as companies and people.

In How to Look People in the Eye Digitally, Ted Rubin re-introduces us to the one-on-one communication skills we’ve forgotten in our rush to new technologies. He shows us how we’ve let social and mobile technologies hold us back, and teaches us new ways to use the people skills we already have to stay connected in an authentic, human way. Through anecdotes from his own experiences as a busy, socially connected executive and single dad, plus examples from brands that are getting it right, Ted inspires new ways to build relationships online that truly grow and prosper.

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Dan Gregory & Kieran Flanagan

Selfish, Scared & Stupid outlines the three most common human traits: selfishness, fear and a need for simplicity. To effectively increase influence and performance, whether it be in the workplace or at home, Dan Gregory & Kieran Flanagan break down these traits and provide implementable solutions and real-life examples that stem from extensive research and an impressive combined body of work.

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Alice Nagle & Luanne Tierney

In today’s competitive, global, connected, and fast-paced business environment, how do young women get career savvy quickly? Two Silicon Valley insiders, Alice Nagle & Luanne Tierney, share advice gained from their professional successes, triumphs, and disappointments. Like a trusted mentor, they offer practical tips, personal stories, and exercises for becoming career smart. This book is geared for women in their 20s to 30s starting their professional careers.

Shelly Alcorn & Willis Turner

Play predates the development of human culture and our brains are hard-wired to use play as a tool to accelerate learning, strategically explore unfamiliar environments and develop collaborative social connections. Games are human created, formalized structures and processes designed to maximize engagement and get the most out of the “play” impulse. In fact, gaming comes so naturally to us we don’t even notice it for what it is. Two examples of large scale gaming structures include our educational and political systems. Going deeper into understanding how gaming structures work, and intentionally applying those mechanics can give us an advantage when designing experiences meant to engage our members in the work of our associations.

Although games have been with us since we first learned to scratch marks on small rocks, what is new is the impact the internet and technology is having on games and players alike. What was simple activity in the past, is rapidly turning into a large scale social phenomenon. At some point the term “gamer” will lose it relevancy and we will recognize gamers for what they are – an increasingly sophisticated class of experience consumers. Games are the first mass media of the 21st century and gaming literacy is an essential skill all executives, staff and volunteers need to develop in order to attract, appeal to and invite a new generation of players to play the association game. In this book, we take a simple, practical approach to helping you and your volunteers take these ideas one step farther.

By using these 42 rules from Shelly Alcorn and Willis Turner,, you will be able to use simple gaming mechanics to increase member engagement, improve educational outcomes and build community in your industry or profession.

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Don Crawley

Now in its third edition, The Compassionate Geek by Don Crawley, was written by a tech person for tech people. There are no frills, just customer service best practices and ideas that actually work! Filled with practical customer service tips, best practices, and real-world techniques, The Compassionate Geek is a quick read with equally fast results. Each chapter includes a reflection and discussion section to help you improve your customer service skills. There are lots of personal stories and examples of mistakes made and lessons learned. This new edition adds an entire chapter on overcoming personal and professional obstacles. All of the information is presented in a straightforward style that you can understand and use right away. There’s nothing foo-foo, just down-to-earth tips and technical support best practices learned from years of working with technical staff and demanding customers and end users.